Sony Classics Scores Guadagnino’s “Name”

Already tipped to be one of the year’s biggest arthouse release, Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they have acquired worldwide rights to “A Bigger Splash” and “I Am Love” director Luca Guadagnino’s next film “Call Me by Your Name”.

Based on Andre Aciman’s acclaimed novel, the story follows a 17-year-old American-Italian Jewish teen named Elio (Timothee Chalamet). Facing another lazy summer at his parents’ villa in the Italian countryside, things change when a handsome 24-year-old American academic named Oliver (Armie Hammer) arrives to help with the research of Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg).

The novel chronicles Elio and Oliver’s summer romance and the twenty years that followed where they only met up again sporadically. The book is also quite sexually explicit, including a graphic act involving an open peach – no word if that will make it to the screen.

Andre Aciman and Sufjan Stevens also star with the latter providing the film’s original songs. James Ivory, Walter Fasano and Guadagnino penned the adaptation which will have its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.